Waiting For The Catastrophe

I'm all alone -- down here in this depression.  I can only imagine (and now, can't stop obsessing about) what's coming from the other side.  It's blue, but maybe it's starting to cloud over.  Is it?  Or are my eyes playing tricks on me?

And while I'm waiting, waiting for the catastrophe, I'm thinking just how pathetic this is.  Pathetic.  Pathetic.  How often do you see that on a news cover?

They ransacked the landscape and killed the coast.  And now we are going to pay -- again.  Interesting, there is not a New Orleanian in sight, but put this picture in front of me, stick me way down here, and suddenly I'm feeling like one.  I've got to get up.  I've got to get over that wall and get some handle on the issue.

(image: Kadir Van Lohuizen.  TIME. August 13, 2007)

Comments

[Steve]

Both this and the TE cover from yesterday's BAG post are symbolic of artificial restraint. Neither looks comfortable, anything near natural, or effective.

The Mississippi and Nature are showing strength, and character that we the peolpe need to learn to respect instead of attempting to conquer with a one time fix & prayers.

There's a common thread running 'tween MN & NO.

[ummabdulla]

Is that actually a photo? If not, then someone could have made a better picture... they should have put something that would be symbolic of New Orleans. As it is, it could be those barriers they put around public buildings to prevent truck bombs. Or, since there's nothing to indicate the size, it could be the wall the Israelis have built around (and in) Palestinian areas. Just looking at the image without reading the text, I would never have thought of New Orleans. Maybe that was intentional? I don't know why it would be, though.

[Doctor Jay]

Is that a crack? That big vertical line in the middle? It's supposed to be there isn't it?

[jtfromBC]

A stark photograph, other than its centered format this unembellished terse script could be a WW ll dispatch.

My first thought after reading the article was of the impenetrable walls between agencies tasked to deal with this challenge. How frighting..as Snoopy said 'we have seen the enemy and..' Next my thoughts wandered to ancient walls built in the hope of controlling nature or protecting people.

Lastly and without minimizing the potential catastrophe for New Orleans there is another wall project ongoing in another part of the world which is producing a hurricane and a potential catastrophe of unimaginable proportions which will affect millions worldwide.
How much do walls really protecting us from nature and our neighbors ?

[margaret]

More fear-mongering, although with some, for a change, geniune reality behind it. Meanwhile, what we ought to be afraid of, in addition to our physical safety, for after all, we can choose where we live, is our loss of civic Constitutionally-given safety from government intrusion into our private communications. How about Time making a cover about that.

[Gahso]

Doctor Jay, good spot with the crack!

Walls, walls and walls. They might not be effective for keeping out the boogeyman, but they sure have come to be popular! This cover speaks equally of all of the dangers facing us today.. Rising Water, the influx of people across our borders, the jihadi swarm that's going to "get us over here" after we leave them "over there"... you can picture practically anything beyond that generic wall.

It used to be that the "grass is always greener" on the other side, now it's more like - pick your poison.

[arty]

jtfromBC - Credit where credit is due: try Pogo.

[Karen]

wow. "Pathetic" on the cover of Time, aimed at the federal government. And how tiny that barrier seems against this portentious weight of sky.

God I hope the rest of the country's hair is on fire, mine has been since 2000.

[jtfromBC]

arty thanks,
apologies to Pogo and his friends
-protecting should read protect in the closing line
--umbadulla in my haste I misread your request in the thread Good Time For A Squeeze.
---Doctor Jay and Gasho it appears they haven't *plastered over* the joint in the panels

[The Electric Messiah]

Does the wall look crooked to anybody else? I'm not a professional by any means, and barely a competent amateur at that, but isn't one of the first rules of landscape photography to "straighten the horizon?" To me, I see the aforementioned crack and the slant indicative of one thing -- frailty.

[Emily]

But is that the actual cover that's going to print? First of all, that cover story is only on the Europe and Asia versions of TIME and with a different cover. Secondly, the U.S. cover story is about Billy Graham. (See here.) TIME must've completely chickened out of this cover. Where did you find it?

[Alison]

Emily : Go back two weeks fron your link to the Aug 13 page - it's there.

[Mad_nVT]

Odd magazine cover, in that the photo lacks context.

But then, maybe the New Orleans situation lacks context. Yes, it is an important city. But it does average 2' below sea level, in hurricane land, and it's sinking. Insecurity is the context.

Language on cover is also odd in its incompleteness. The Perfect Storm also includes:

Racism
"Let the po' folks drownd"
Incompetence
Cut taxes, see the infrastructure rot
And, in the White House-- "Ignorance is bliss"

These contribute as much to the potential catastrophe as the three issues the Front Cover highlights. They probably didn't have room for all that, and more, on the cover.

[littlest gator]

I liked your choice of covering this, and unlike most of the commentors I thought this was a very powerful image and a good cover. It should feel ominous, it could be anywhere, since what we learned from the bushies is that we are not safe and we will not get help from our government. I thought this was very powerful.

[readytoblowagasket]

I just got my September issue of The Atlantic in the mail this week. Like TIME, the cover shows a low horizon line and almost three-quarters of sky against which to write (and center) the cover-story copy. On the Atlantic's horizon line is the White House, a sliver of the lawns, majestic old trees hugging the building on either side, a white fountain, and a trickle of blood-red flowers that underlines a perfectly manicured hedge in front of the fountain. The cloudy sky is the color of thick, dark smoke, like from a fire, or perhaps the stormy sky of The Wizard of Oz (only darker). The Atlantic is making an unambiguous statement about ominous, and the timing on the newsstand will effectively preempt the undoubtedly positive surge report from President Petraeus.

The pale yellow (lightning?) copy on the Atlantic cover reads, "Lessons of a Failed Presidency: Why Karl Rove Couldn't Deliver." Although the cover image is not yet online, a teaser for the cover story (renamed "The Rove Presidency") is.

The TIME cover is vaguely reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz, too. Substitute "Dubya" for "Dorothy."

I think it's interesting that art directors seem to be looking to the heavens for a sign. See also the August 11 issue of The Economist.